


Escape

by Gammarad



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Collection: Purimgifts Day 2, Gen, Jewish Pevensies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-11
Updated: 2020-03-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:40:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22874143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gammarad/pseuds/Gammarad
Summary: What sorts of real thingsaren'tthere all the time?A snippet of what if Lucy was Jewish, set right after her return from Narnia at the end of Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 19
Collections: Purimgifts 2020





	Escape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [embraidery](https://archiveofourown.org/users/embraidery/gifts).



> _"Well, sir, if things are real, they're there all the time."_
> 
> _"Are they?" said the Professor; and Peter did not know quite what to say._

  


  


This was only a few weeks after the Pevensies had returned from their years as Kings and Queens of Narnia. Becoming children again had been strange at first and then frustrating, as they began to forget their Narnia lifetimes piece by piece and resume their Earthly existence.

So it was welcome news that their uncle would soon arrive.

Uncle Michael had been injured in the War and came to Professor Kirke's house to recuperate. It was the countryside and therefore healthful, and the Professor's housekeeper Mrs. Macready was willing. She had been a nurse in the previous war; she knew her way around taking care of wounded soldiers, she said, and that was that.

Lucy offered immediately to assist with his care. She had been a healer in Narnia, and while she had no magic cordial anymore, she had learned a great deal of supplementary healing in her time. She hadn't forgotten it all and thought she might like very much to become a nurse someday herself.

At first, the children's uncle slept almost all of the time. His left leg had been amputated below the knee, and there were deep half-healed wounds up the left thigh to his hip. He restlessly moved from his back to his right side and then back to lying prone. Lucy gave him sips of water or broth when he woke briefly, then fetched Mrs. Macready who would take him to the lavatory.

A little more than a week after his arrival, Lucy was sitting next to her patient's bedside when she heard him muttering. She thought she caught the word "lions" and gasped in surprise. Michael's eyes fluttered open. "Who, oh, it's Lucy," he said, seeming not entirely aware of where he was.

"Uncle Michael," Lucy said, "what did you say about a lion?"

But he had no memory of the word. "I haven't seen one since I went to Regent's Park, that was years ago," he said. "Do you have a toy lion?" 

But that wasn't the sort of lion Lucy wanted to talk about, neither a zoo lion nor a toy. She wanted to ask him about Aslan. "In the war," she began.

"Lions are fierce, but the war isn't that kind of fighting." 

So she told him what she remembered, some of it anyway -- the part that was a war, where Aslan the great lion had fought beside them. Another lion had been there too, but she didn't mention him or many other details, as one shouldn't tire a patient too badly. Still, it was half an hour in the telling, and Michael was looking very tired when she finished. "I wish the war was like that," he said. "Though I am not sure it was our fight, not yours nor mine. This is a Christian nation, they say it often. And from what you say, that one may be too."

"The people there weren't Sons of Adam and Daughters of Eve, but they were our people," Lucy said. 

"Sons of Abraham and Daughters of Sarah," Michael said. "And we all may be, but is it worth it." He was exhausted, Lucy could tell. 

Or he would not be saying such things. "What Aslan told me was that he chose us to be the kings and queens because we were the ones he had made the first compact with. Even though the others were all his people. We had to do it, they needed us."

"And now that you're gone? Won't they be fine?" Michael looked at the flat place in the bed where his leg ought to have been. "They'll be fine at the front, without me."

Once Kings and Queens of Narnia, always Kings and Queens of Narnia, Lucy thought. "Once a veteran of the British army, always a veteran of the British army," she said stoutly. "You'll always be their comrade in arms." 

And the enemy was persecuting their people, was much worse, so Lucy had learned from the family of children in the neighboring farm that had been brought in via the Kindertransport. 

Hildegard and Arno had left their parents and baby brother behind and come to Britain because the enemy was blaming Jews for all the problems they had. The war was not their fault, of course, but Lucy was unhappy to discover that many local children seemed to disagree with this self-evident fact. 

They were in between Susan and Edmund's ages, and often visited their only Jewish neighbors as a safe haven from all that. Lucy made up her mind to show them where the wardrobe was. It was always possible Aslan wanted to help them, too, find their way into Narnia.

Narnia could always use some Jewish help.


End file.
